ICU doctor didn’t think toddler would survive
Physician says parents, now facing charges, were shocked at grim prognosis
A Calgary baby was so ill that his intensive-care unit doctor told his parents she feared he wouldn’t survive, their criminal negligence trial heard Tuesday.
Dr. Meagan Mahoney, who choked back tears when she looked at pictures of the John Clark’s lifeless body, said Jennifer and Jeromie Clark were shocked when she gave them her dire prognosis.
“I believe I told them he was severely ill, that I was worried about his condition,” Mahoney told Crown prosecutor Shane Parker, about her initial talk with the Clarks.
“I was worried that he had an infection,” Mahoney said.
“I did tell them I was worried that he was not going to survive.”
Jennifer Clark, 41, and Jeromie, 38, are both charged with criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide the necessaries of life for the 14-month-old, who died Nov. 29, 2013.
Mahoney said she broke the news to the parents in the early evening of Nov. 28, before the toddler had the first of two cardiac arrests.
Parker asked what the father’s reaction was to being told the youngest of his three sons was near death.
“Shock, devastated, very upset,” Mahoney said.
And the mother, he asked. “Also shocked, tearful, very worried.”
Mahoney said there was no evidence the boy had a pre-existing heart condition, instead indicating he was diagnosed as being in septic shock.
“Every organ in his body was un- der stress, including his heart,” she said of the infection.
The toddler went into cardiac arrest at 6:08 p.m., but staff were able to get his heart rate stabilized.
Overnight, he was treated with antibiotics and staff did as much as they could to protect his brain, she said, adding the prognosis was not good.
“The words I would’ve used would be ‘very grim prognosis’, I was worried that he was not going to survive the night,” Mahoney said.
The following morning, with John clinging to life, he had a second cardiac arrest, she said.
“We weren’t able to recover his heart rate the way we were the day before,” the doctor testified.
“In order for us to give him time for his family to arrive … we were able to externally cause his heart to beat.”
All they had left was “to keep him alive until his family came back.”
At 12:47 p.m. on Nov. 29, with his parents by his bedside, the boy succumbed to his illness, Mahoney said.
Defence lawyers John Phillips and David Chow will cross-examine the doctor on Wednesday.
I told them he was severely ill, that I was worried about his condition. … I was worried that he had an infection.